


Echoes With No Apologies

by QuintessentialNutcase



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ace character, Asexual Character, Bisexual Characters, Detective Story, I reckon you'll like it, I'm Bad At Tagging, Murder Mystery, Origin Story, Poisoning, Thallium Poisoning, There's probably a trigger warning in there somewhere but nothing too graphic I don't think, and summaries, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 12:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11989371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuintessentialNutcase/pseuds/QuintessentialNutcase
Summary: Meet Ianto Johnson, pathologist and detective, manipulative weasel, the only person who still puts up with me, et cetera, et cetera. I know, I'd have to be mad to let my self be dragged into another of his insane escapades, which I'm well aware will only end in blood, tears and the resurfacing of almost-buried memories. But, then again, since when have I been anything other than mad.Also on my blog: http://www.elizabethbyles.opinious.co.uk/echoes-with-no-apologies/





	1. Chapter 1

The harsh morning sun combined with my dusty and smeared window was, suffice to say, an unpleasant sight to wake up to. I really ought to get curtains, I probably won’t though.

After a moment, I caught what awoke me, a ceaseless banging on my front door. I supposed I should get that. My eyes fell shut and once more the comforting embrace of sleep enveloped me.

My hateful window hadn’t improved in appearance, and the addition of an annoyed, cheap-suited pathologist hardly added aesthetic value. I wondered what he wanted and why he was in my bedroom, but then again, I didn’t really care. I really ought to get my locks changed. I pulled the duvet over my head and hope that he would leave if I ignored his existence. That’ll be the day.

“Gabriel, if you don’t get up now I’m going to make you a cup of tea, and then I’m going to pour it over your head.”

“No, you won’t, Ianto, you’re far too middle class for that.” I hissed from under my pillow.

“Don’t test me, Wilde, I’m not in the mood today.”

‘Wilde’ eh? He must be having a bad morning. I heaved my lanky limbs from under the covers to look him in his dreary face, he returned my gaze with a hardened stare, he was tired- no, exhausted, and stressed, a few fresh grey hairs amongst the dark brown, probably still hadn’t finished that report on the latest ripper victim. His face was more vacant than usual, dark circles under his eyes, he clearly hadn’t slept well. In my experience, that meant one thing and one thing alone.

He has a brand-new body and no idea who stopped its heart.

“No.” I stated, positive that I wouldn’t get dragged into another of his wild goose chases. It’s not going to happen. “You know the way out,” After a though I added, “ and leave your key on the table.”

“Come on, Gabe, you know I wouldn’t be here if I had another option.” His deep brown eyes widened as he pulled out a face that, ten years ago, could have been called ‘puppy eyes’. Now it just looked sad. Even so, it still had the power to bend my will.

I flopped back into my bed, berating myself for falling for his ludicrous antics once again.

“Give me five minutes, I expect tea.”

I could tell without looking that those sad eyes and that tight frown had been replaced with a triumphant smirk. When he left and I heard my kettle beginning to boil, I pulled on some clothes. She’d once said that my ‘girly hair’ hardly fitted with my ‘grandfatherly style’. I learnt at a young age that I should ignore other people’s opinions, but at the time she’d been rather difficult to dismiss.

Still battling with my jumper, I stumbled to my kitchen and snatched my mug from Ianto’s grasp. I knew it was my mug because Ianto was one of those anomalies, the ones who drink their tea without milk.

“Where are my glasses?” I asked, looking in the usual places: key bowl, coffee table, biscuit tin, the top of my head, et cetera.

“Have you seen your face?” He responded, sipping his tea, leaning against my counter, smirking.

I couldn’t quite tell if he was just being childish or if I was suffering from post-sleep puffiness and bed-hair. I glanced into my toaster’s shiny exterior.

He wasn’t just being childish.

I rolled my eyes and headed to the bathroom, beginning to tug a comb through my tangled hair one-handed whilst trying to drink my breakfast. I resolved to get a haircut, it reached my shoulders and every blasted centimetre had at least fifteen knots.

I looked in the mirror and sighed. I could do with a shave, but I couldn’t summon the energy. My skin looked grey, not like the cheerful man I saw in the photos around my house. Even my once bright blue eyes seemed to have dulled and faded, new creases and lines spread out from their corners. I suppose after a while everyone begins to look how they feel.

I quickly gave up on tying my hair back, it just wasn’t working, it didn’t feel right. Nothing did these days.

One last comb through and I was looking a little more presentable and feeling a little more human. I resumed my search. One trouble with losing my glasses is that I could be looking straight at them and not know it. The other trouble is that I had a habit of leaving them in the strangest of places.

Much to Ianto’s amusement, I found them sitting proudly next to my toothbrush, their rounded silver frames glittering under the artificial lighting.

“Come on then, you morbid freak, tell me all about your murder.” I opened my battered excuse of a front door and beckoned him through, following him out to the rust bucket he called a car.

“The victim’s name is Graeme Yonge, he was found in his home dead by a weekly cleaner. He died of heart failure and had symptoms of advances thallium poisoning. He’d been dead two days but I think the thallium entered his system a while before that, at least a week.”

“Thallium? Interesting, not seen that one in a while.” I mused.

“The whole team’s on the ripper case, and this isn’t even confirmed foul play. Boss reckons it could be suicide, I’m on my own with this one, you know investigation’s not my best area, I’ve always been better in a lab.” Ianto continued. I sighed. It wasn’t _meant_ to be my area either, not anymore anyway.

“Tell me all about Graeme then.” That was sound of me and the last of my resolve crumbling into how easily he wrapped me around his little finger. He knew that I remembered the last time he went probing murder cases alone.

“Thirty-five, oldest of two. He’d done well for himself in the software development industry, made more per year than you and I combined.” I snorted, that wasn’t much to beat. “He had an ex-fiancé, Lilly Owen, who I’ve already spoken to, but I don’t reckon she had it in her, she was a little higher up in the same company as him, not short of cash by any means. Anyway, according to her, he’d battled with depression and self-harm since he was a teenager. After a while she couldn’t cope with the mood swings. They stayed on good terms after the break up, not an ounce of motive in her, but stranger things have happened.”

“I’ll want to speak to her again.”

“Of course, you will.”

We pulled up to the monstrosity of a building I’d once called home. But that’s a whole other story, and not one I tell lightly.

As we entered the building Ianto flashed his badge to the lady at the desk. I avoided her eyes and kept walking. Up the stairs, down the hall, through the office, into the lab, and relax, breathe. There’s no one here to stare at me. Well, except that corpse.

“Graeme, I assume?” His cold dead eyes bore into me.

“Yup.” Ianto was obscenely cheerful for someone with a dead body two metres from his lunch. “So, Gabe, what do you see?”

I let out a lungful of air and brought my eyes to rest on him.

The signs of thallium were glaringly obvious, white streaks across his nails, his scalp tinted dark around his hair follicles and I imagine that a week ago he’d had a full head of hair, but not anymore.

The creases along his cheeks and forehead weren’t from laughter or smiles. Scars, too straight to be accidental, littered his thighs. Interestingly, a dark bruise ringed his left eye.

I flicked through the pile of clothes and pocket-fillers that had been found on him. He had an expensive phone and wore superhero socks. He spent his money liberally, he wasn’t a dragon, but he didn’t take himself too seriously either. At least not on his good days. One item caught my eye, a red velvet ring box. Inside was an elaborate engagement ring engraved with ‘forever’, either he’d still hoped to marry his ex or he was a sentimental man. Perhaps both. I noted the lack of wallet and moved on.

“Why would anyone want to kill you?” I muttered to Graeme. “Have you got access to his phone?” I asked Ianto.

“Yeah, his last messages were the baby sister and the ex.”

“To or from?”

“From the sister, to the ex.”

“What did they say?”

“The sister, Mary if you’d like to know, said ‘I can’t wait to talk to you tomorrow’, sent a week and three days before he died.”

“About when he ingested the thallium.” I muttered.

“I reckon so, he sent ‘How are you today?’ to Miss Owen, the ex, the next day.”

“Scrap the ex, I want to talk to the sister.”

Ianto chuckled from his pacing behind me, “I thought you might, I asked her to be here in about ten minutes.”

I scowled at him, “If you knew she was a suspect, why did you drag me out of bed?”

Ianto smiled at me, I hated it when he did that. “You know why Gabriel, now what do you have?”

Nodding, I let the familiar swing of things encompass me. “He was fighting his own mind almost continuously, but he was starting to win, no knew cuts. He has so many old ones, some that have almost faded, some that are barely healed, but no brand-new ones. Was he seeing a therapist?” I asked.

“Yes, he started when Owen walked out on him.”

I nodded, he wanted her back. He was hopeful, hence the ring and the text.

“This isn’t suicide, this is murder. Any traces of thallium in the house?”

“None that we could find. According to Miss Owen he spent quite a lot of time at a family cabin a few miles away, in Thanat Forest. I was thinking that we could head over there and look around, see if we find anything.” He was circling me with a wide radius, attempting to look casual. He was trying not to push me, not to spook me, as though I were a wounded animal or a cranky child.

“After we talk to the sister, and stop your pacing.”

Finally, he sat down. We stayed either side of the corpse for some time, waiting for Mary Yonge to join us, but hours passed and she was nowhere to be seen.

Drinking my fourth cup of mediocre tea that day my brain snapped, I was sick of sitting in this plastic chair in this blasted lab where everything began and it all ended. Even if my only escape involved investigating this damned case and walking past the curious stares and sideways glances of my former co-workers, I’d take it.

“She’s not coming.” I stated, meeting Ianto’s eyes for the first time since we’d sat down at ten this morning.

“I’d decided that four hours ago, what have you been thinking about?” He looked worried yet relieved, that manipulative mind of his returned. He knew exactly what I’d been thinking about, he phrased it as though inviting me to share and shine light on the darkest corners of my soul. He meant it as, let’s go and catch the killer or we’ll have to sit here for another God-knows-how-long.

“Thanat Forest, was it?” I stood and ignored his smirk.

“It was indeed.” He left the room. I took a moment before following him, a moment to look around and remember how the lab looked now, not how it looked then.

As we stepped through the glass doors onto the street I glared at Ianto once more. It wasn’t strictly his fault that everyone in that building looked at me as though I had seven heads, each in a different colour of the rainbow, but he wasn’t exactly an innocent party in the matter.

“Come on Gabe, to the cabin, someone will call me if she arrives.”

I stopped in my tracks, a glimpse of understanding dawning on me.

“She didn’t come.”

Ianto was doing that thing with his face that looked like a suspicious owl. Although, he did always look a little bit like an owl, I attributed it to the eyebrows and persistent head-tilting.

“When a detective asks to speak to you about your dead brother, you come, that’s How Not to Look Like a Murderer: Rule One.”

“Well, I didn’t speak to her directly. She didn’t pick up the phone so I left a voicemail, when I was contacting next of kin yesterday, when I got the body.” Voicemail, maybe she’d fled?

“What was the relationship like between them, Graeme and Mary? Were they close?”

Ianto shrugged, “Not according to Owen, no bad blood but not much love either. Ever since they were kids they’ve had your typical sibling rivalry.”

“Do you have her address?”

“Sure, why?” I was already getting into his car.

“Just drive.” I demanded, my brain too far ahead of itself to backtrack.


	2. Chapter 2

The ride passed in silence thanks to Ianto slapping my hand away from the radio every time I tried to turn it on.

When we arrived outside the squeezed-in two-up two-down, complete with stamp sized garden, my theory was almost confirmed. Walking up to the door, Ianto knocked three times and we waited once again for Miss Mary Yonge to grace us with her presence. Once again, she did nothing but disappoint.

“Do you need a warrant to break into the home of a suspected murderer?” I asked, a little rusty on the red-tape.

“Yes.”

I nodded, and a thought occurred to me.

I didn’t.

“Wait here.” I said, walking a few houses down to an ally and following it to the back of Miss Yonge’s home, ignoring the call of ‘What are you doing, Wilde?’ from my legally bound companion. After all, what could the Boss do, fire me again?

At least it would be reasonable this time around.

A wooden gate was all that barred me entry, and I peered through it to ensure I was unobserved, before reaching over, in an admittedly rather undignified manner, and releasing the latch.

The garden wasn’t over grown as such, but it was certainly neglected. A week without water in the summer heat will do that, and I suspected that the guardian of these plants had skipped town a little while ago. I walked towards the house and found the back door barely hanging from its hinges, obviously I wasn’t the only one who’d come looking for her.

“Mary, Mary, Mary,” I tutted under my breath as I stepped into the darkened kitchen. Broken glass and crockery were scattered across the floor, I moved to the living room and saw that the television had been wrenched from its plugs. “Who did you owe money?” I whispered. Standing there, I could see what had happened.

They’d come with the intent of collecting and maybe scaring her a bit, but she was nowhere to be found. They were frustrated, more than if they’d just popped in unannounced. They’d arranged this meeting- no, she’d arranged this meeting. She’d promised them the money that she knew she’d have and then she decided to keep it. After all, murder is a lot of effort. She probably felt like she deserved it.

I strode over to the front door and let Ianto in.

“I think we have our motive sorted out.”

I let him take in the scene.

“Do we think gang related, or loan sharks?” He asked.

“They took the TV.”

“Loan sharks then.”

“Yeah.”

I left his fresher mind to consider the crime. I’d always been better at people.

In the lounge, I walked to the centre and stopped, standing as still as I could. She had pots of plants sprinkled all around her house, one or two I recognised as toxic. Hardly concrete proof that she’s a poisoner, but it’s all in the details.

I heard the faint scuttle of rats or mice beneath the floor boards, perhaps that’s where she got her inspiration, thallium was used in rat poisons in the years of old, illegal to do so now, of course, but not everywhere.

Then there were the candles. If she was short of cash then she might be accustomed to the odd evening without power, but usually that only requires cheap tealights, not vanilla-scented incense and candles in coloured jars. It didn’t quite sit right. Perhaps-

“Anything?” Ianto interrupted. I turned to face him, scowling.

“I was thinking.”

“Yes, I could see that. What did you conclude?” He rolled his eyes at me.

“Some toxic house plants and she had some sort of small rodent under her floor boards. I’ve got nothing that says she couldn’t have done it.”

“Great, any idea where she went? I looked for a computer but only found a disconnected laptop charger, I reckon the sharks took it.”

“Fantastic _reckoning_ , can you _reckon_ up Graeme’s credit card expenditures for me?”

“It was frozen as soon as we got his body, Owen was his sole beneficiary and she still hasn’t been ruled out as a suspect.” Ianto rambled, as unhelpfully as ever.

“Not what I asked, Johnson, can you access his account activity from the last week and three days?”

“Give me about an hour.”

“Off you pop, I’ll walk back in a bit.”

“It’s an hour-long walk, Gabe.” His voice softened.

“I’ll be just in time then.” My voice hardened.

I waited until I heard his ‘car’ drive off before I moved again. Deciding to explore the two-up side of the house, I climbed the stairs and stepped into the master bedroom. It was adorned with a pot of miniature cacti by the window, which overlooked the street of tightly packed terraced houses. I toyed with the edges of the peeling rainbow sticker stuck in the corner of the glass.

On her desk, a cheap rickety thing, though very well dusted, sat a pile of opened letters. Their dates ranged from years ago to last week and they all said roughly the same thing.

‘I’m sorry to inform you that your work isn’t what we are looking for at this time.’

She was an aspiring writer then. Aspiring being the key word. But she kept trying, I mentally applauded her persistence.

Her bed was made carefully, she was a woman that took pride in everyday things. Or perhaps she had company to impress?

I drifted to the bathroom and, sure enough there were two toothbrushes by the sink. The single set of toiletries puzzled me, but I thought little more of it.

Back to the kitchen, I resolved.

The fridge was mostly full of bottled water, fruit, vegetables and low-fat yoghurt amongst the typical essentials. The cupboard was a different story, a brand-new jar of instant coffee, opened but used infrequently, sat proudly next to a packet of biscuits, luxury chocolate chip ones in similar state. Both still had sell-by-dates far in the future and the cookies were still edible, deliciously so.

Their taste was soured somewhat when I remembered that they belonged to a suspected thallium poisoner.

Oh well.

I checked the bin. Sure enough, near the top, under a few empty bottles and boxes, sat a receipt for the very same coffee and cookies, dated just a couple days before she last texted her brother, and priced rather extravagantly for what they were.

“Gotcha.” I whispered, a smile worming it’s was to the surface of my face.

After all, Graeme was hardly a health freak, he worked with computers, and had slightly yellowed teeth, a combination that usually meant coffee dependency. As for the biscuits, well, how better to make someone think you aren’t trying to kill them than distracting them with chocolate. Lull him into a false sense of security and then drop thallium sulphate into his coffee instead of sugar, whoops.

I nicked a carrier bag from under the sink and placed the coffee and her sugar tin inside, just in case.

With all I needed from there, I left the house, smiling. I began to walk back to hell, turning over Mary Yonge in my mind.

A little while later, I wasn’t sure exactly when but the sun was beginning to set, my phone began to buzz. Sighing, I answered and pressed it to my ear.

“Gabriel Wilde speaking, how long until I can hang up?”

_“As soon as you like as long as you hurry up and get your lanky arse here. Now.”_ Ianto always sounded rushed on the phone, perhaps he hated phone calls as much as me. I suppose that begs the question why he insisted on calling me despite my deliberate and unsubtle hints that I’d rather dip my eyeballs in concentrated lemon juice. _“We’ve got another body, it’s the ex.”_

“On my way already, meet me in the lobby?”

_“Of course.”_   I suppose he wasn’t all bad.

I walked the rest of the way with a slightly hastened pace and when I arrived at the building Ianto met me at the door, ushering me up into the lab.

“She was found, alive, in her home. It looks like she overdosed on everything she could find. She died in the ambulance, they didn’t quite get there quick enough. But here is where it gets interesting-” He looked to the carrier bag and frowned. “Since when did you drink coffee?”

“They’re from the sister’s home. There were also biscuits but I’m pretty sure that they aren’t contaminated.” He eyed me suspiciously before realisation dawned on him.

“You ate them didn’t you!”

“Just the one, now what’s interesting about her?” I asked, shifting his focus from my poor decisions to the matter at hand.

“Let me know if you feel ill, won’t you?” I nodded and urged him on. “Well, her neighbour, the one that called the ambulance, saw her throw up and keel over before she entered her house. She couldn’t have taken the drugs by then, and what do we know that gives people stomach pain and vomiting a couple of hours after exposure?”

“Thallium.” I more breathed than said it, but my point got across.

“Absolutely. Where ever she went before coming home, she was exposed to thallium, just like Yonge.” He was looking at me with expectancy, like a child would watch their teacher mark their homework. Pride, but a little fearful.

“I can see that,” I didn’t share his feeling of finality.

“Don’t you get it?” He asked.

I shook my head.

“She found the sister, she knew something. She went to confront Mary, who killed her to stop her from telling us!” He sat back on his chair and grinned at me. It didn’t quite feel right.

“No, that’s… that’s not what happened.” I walked over to her. She’d only been dead hours, her face was blotched with red patches and she had small cuts on each of her palms from her own nails, which had blood collected under them. She had symmetrical scratches across her scalp, as though she’d tried to tear out her own hair. The knees of her jeans were covered in dust and a few splinters. Blood had trickled down to the collar of her blouse from a cut on her scalp, now surrounded by her matted blonde hair.

“Well then, what do you think happened?” His tone showed his displeasure, but I was stood before the body of someone who died grieving, Ianto’s feelings could wait.

“She found another body. Someone she cared about, someone who cared about _her_. If she’d confronted Mary, she would have died there and then, she wouldn’t have been let go,” I turned to him, surprised by his idiocy, “And, anyway, why would she go home and kill herself, that’s absurd. No, she found a body and was overcome with grief, overwhelmed by… _guilt_ ,” I pointed to her hands and I heard that my voice was shaky, “She couldn’t control herself. She lost two people close to her so quickly.” I swallowed my emotions before adding, “It was brutal.”

“Who’s body?” He asked, his voice softer now, almost as quiet as mine.

“I don’t know.” I admitted, dissecting my brain for possibilities.

“She probably wasn’t short of people who cared about her.” Ianto remarked.

“What?” He looked at me as though I were an idiot.

“Well, look at her. She’d probably had people doting on her all her life.” Trust Ianto Johnson to see the attractive side of a corpse.

“Not really my area.” I said, hoping that Ianto would understand without me having to explain. He seemed to, if his nod was anything to go by. The subject made another question arise. “What about Graeme?”

“What about him?”

“You know what, your professional opinion.”

“Oh, not really my type, a bit skinny-”

“ _Professional._ ”

“Alright, I reckon his sister got the looks of the family, but I suppose he was quite good looking, in a geeky sort of way. He looked vulnerable, if a bit… rat-like.” Maybe that’s where the thallium came from. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know, but I do know that Mary Yonge put that body there. She must have a hideout somewhere, where she kept the poison, prepared it, where she’s keeping the other body, that’s got to be how Owen was exposed. Yonge’s probably long gone by now, but we might find something telling us where she’s gone.”

“Somewhere quiet I’d wager.” Ianto added, his sudden helpfulness puzzled me.

“Yes, but not too isolated.”

“Somewhere with a quick getaway, near a main road perhaps.” Now he was smirking and I understood.

“Just give me the bloody bank records, Johnson.” I rolled my eyes. “And stop trying to be clever.”

He chuckled and handed me a few pieces of paper, he’d printed a map and everything.

“I take it that my walk took longer than an hour.” I said, not looking up from the document.

“Just a tad. I hadn’t thought about her palms though, good spot. I suppose you would spot that.”

“There’s a reason I was your superior back in the day.” I replied, flashing him a smirk of my own.

He sighed and shook his head.

“There’s petrol station just off the main road through Thanat Forest, a few minutes down the road is an abandoned house, the people who lived in it died and their kids live abroad and can’t be bothered to sell it, so it’s just been sitting there for years. You’ll never guess where the last withdrawal of Graeme Yonge’s bank account was from.”

“That petrol station, by any chance?”

“Bingo! And, the best bit, it’s only a few miles from the Yonge family cabin, there’s practically a path between them. I’d imagine that’s how she chose it.”

“What are we waiting for then? Got a gas mask by any chance?”

“I’m sure I can source a couple from upstairs.” He grinned at me, I tried to return it, but within seconds I felt a little nauseous.

Ten minutes later we were sat, once again, in Ianto’s god-awful car and I was tugging at the sleeves of my jumper staring out of the window into the darkened night-sky. Trying not to think about his words was a little like trying not to think about a pink elephant.

_‘You would spot that.’_

“Why did you drag me to this, Ianto? You could have easily done this yourself, you don’t need me.” I asked quietly, so that if the answer was as I feared he just could pretend he hadn’t heard.

He turned to me for a second before looking back to the road.

“We were a good team. I liked our team. Then you split up our team by getting yourself fired-” He must have sensed my glare, because he swiftly corrected himself, “You know what I mean, you were fired, whoever’s fault it was. It hasn’t been the same without you.”

Well, that wasn’t what I’d expected. I suppose that’s better than, ‘I worry about you, sitting at home alone all day, it isn’t healthy.’

Then, just as we arrived, he had to open his mouth again.

“And, I worry about you, you shouldn’t sit at home alone all day, it can’t be healthy.” Damn him.

“Put your mask on.” I said, getting out of the car as soon as it stopped moving.

We walked towards the building, masks on, he held a pistol in his hands and I held a torch, feeling more than a little disadvantaged by that. We stood either side of the front door, I pulled it open and he stepped through. We’d expected a body and some dodgy chemicals. We were wrong.

An old sofa stood in the middle of the front room, upon it was a sleeping, but very alive and snoring, man cradling a bottle of whiskey. The handle of a gun stuck out from under his pillow. We exchanged glances and approached him. He showed no signs of waking, so I began to ease the pistol from under his drooling head and held it in my unpractised hands. I prayed that muscle memory is as effective as they say and gestured for Ianto to search the rest of the house.

After the second longest couple of moments of my life he returned mouthing the all-clear at me.

I shrugged and tapped the gentleman on the forehead. His eyes flickered open, they were bloodshot and angry. He took a moment, staring at us with confusion. In a flash of motion his hands came up to my own, wrenching the gun from me. Memories tumbled into my mind as he turned it on me, every instinct in my body screamed to flee, and yet every cell refused to co-operate. I felt a sharp pain on my head and heard the all-too-familiar sound of gunshot.

The world went black.


	3. Chapter 3

A throbbing and pulsing pain filled my head and a nauseous wave washed over me. I reached my hand up to my head and felt a sticky substance beneath my fingers. I could hear a recognisable shout amongst the faint ringing. I opened my eyes to see the bothersome sight of Ianto Johnson looking at me, his brow furrowed, shaking my shoulder.

“Gabe, wake up. Come on, Gabe.” Someone had removed my gasmask. I hope he checked the area first.

“Where’s the… guy?”

“I shot him after he hit you. Are you alright?”

“Is he dead?” After a thought I added, “Stop duplicating.”

He smiled tightly, “No, I shot him in the shoulder.”

“Good, I want to talk to him.”

I tried to pull myself up with his arm, although I did little more that pull him down to the floor with me.

“Not sure you’re going anywhere. Sit up.” He pulled me upright. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“Stop spinning!” I spat at him. He had the nerve to laugh.

He sat with me on the floor for a moment as the room slowly ceased its infernal rotation and the ringing died out. Hauling myself up I looked him in his smirking eyes.

“I need to talk to him.”

We walked over to the wooden chair where our attacker was handcuffed the radiator and nursing his bleeding shoulder.

“People are on their way, I assume?” I quietly asked Ianto, he nodded.

“Great.” I picked up the man’s gun, still lying on the floor where Ianto had flung it. I turned it over in my hands, it’s cheap, unreliable feel turned my stomach, but nonetheless, it would suffice.

I walked over to him, brandishing it.

“Gabriel, you don’t need to do this.” Ianto muttered. I supressed a smirk.

“He knocked me unconscious,” I growled, “That’s not something I _appreciate_.”

“He’s not going anywhere and the Boss is on his way, he’ll get his reprimands then.” Ianto strolled across the room, his hands in his pockets, looking as casual as he could. I wasn’t looking at him, but that’s what he always did at this point.

“No, he’ll get them now.” I insisted, doing my best impression of my father as I closed in on him a little more. He eyed me warily but gave no signs of fear.

“Fine, fine, but if they start asking questions again, I won’t put my neck out for you, not like last time.” I could hear the eye roll in his voice.

“Well, it’s not like they’ll take my badge and gun. I’m not allowed either have either. Not anymore.” I flashed out prisoner a grin, just on the other side of sanity.

I heard a snort behind me that definitely wasn’t in the script, followed by a sighed, “Just get it over with.”

I was watching my attacker’s eyes intently when they widened, a slight flare of panic rising somewhere within him, and darted from my hand to the cabinet across the room, almost certainly the most precious thing there, a final thought spared for the object of terror and of love. I smiled, psychology rarely lies with the ignorant.

I opened the only draw that had a handle _not_ covered in dust and found a few handbags, wallets and purses. I sighed, looking through a few of the wallets on the top until I found the one belonging to Mr Graeme Yonge, I waved it at Ianto.

“He obviously nicked it, gunpoint probably. It was him not the sister.”

Ianto looked at the thief with confusion and contempt. “This guy poisoned him?” He asked.

“No, he mugged him, I doubt much else. That explains the black eye.” I sighed, defeat filling my tone.

I racked my brain as Ianto spoke to the arriving officers. When he eventually came and joined me on the crumbling brick wall outside I still didn’t have an answer.

“So, the sister needs money,” He began, “she arranges to pay her off her sharks and then arranges to meet her brother. She poisons he brother somewhere, not here, and, what? He doesn’t have any money on him, so she runs?” He suggested.

“No.” I couldn’t fault him for trying, but he was wrong.

Then, I remembered the ring box.

“He was sentimental,” I announced, vaguely aware that those words would mean very little to anyone outside of my head, “He competed with his sister, there was rivalry, but no bad-blood, that’s what the ex said, right?” Ianto nodded and I let out a laugh. Everything clicked back into place as the story flowed to me.

“What are you getting at Wilde?” He all but growled.

“If she asked for money, he’d have given it to her, but she was too proud to ask. Just think, rejection letter after rejection letter, but she kept at it. She was a proud woman, they’d been rivals since they were children, to ask for help would be to admit defeat, she wouldn’t do that, so it wasn’t him that she asked. Tell me, why did you assume that Lilly Owen knew something about the sister?”

“She just spoke like she knew her pretty well, talked quite a bit about her.”

“And you assumed that she was suspicious.”

“Yeah.”

“Any other possibilities? Like, guilt, for instance?”

“Wilde.” Another warning growl, I sighed. He hated when I revelled in realisation, but when he does it it’s fine, apparently.

“It all makes sense now! In Mary’s home there were two toothbrushes, but only one set of shampoo, do you use your girlfriends shampoo, or rather would you if you had one?” He scowled and shook his head. “But you’d use your boyfriends, wouldn’t you?” He shrugged. “There was a bloody rainbow sticker, I _really_ am getting slow. When Lilly Owen left Graeme she was as devastated as he was, she loved him, but she couldn’t cope. So who did she turn to? The only other person who understood, someone who knew what Graeme went through. His sister!” I watched as understanding dawned on his face.

“They were together.”

“Yup.” I popped the p, the rest of the pieces joining seamlessly in my mind.

“But something went wrong, what?”

“That sibling competition turned a little sour. I’d bet that he saw them together, maybe just having lunch or dinner, but he saw his competition with the woman he loved, he got jealous. Mary loved her brother and didn’t want to hurt him, so she arranged to meet with him, to tell him, hence the coffee and biscuits. She wasn’t trying to make him feel safe so she could kill him, she wanted him to _feel safe_.” The more I rambled, the more made sense.

“But he already knew and saw an opportunity.”

“Absolutely, he felt betrayed and desperate. He wanted to marry Lilly, so he needed his competition out of the way.”

“I think we need to visit that cabin.” He had a maddened grin plastered across his stupid face.

“I think you might be right.” I knew that I had one to match.

We hurried to the car in the spots of rain that were descending, coating my glasses with an infuriating film of blur.

The silence of the journey wasn’t weighted, strained or awkward. It was buzzing with anticipation, that triumphant feeling just before the wave crashes or the thunder sounds. We’d cracked it, and the memories of this same feeling in countless cases before resurfaced and just for a moment I rejoiced.

Arriving at the cabin, we approached slowly, pulling gas masks on, bearing a pistol and a torch. We stalked to the door, adrenaline coursing through our veins, or at least through mine. No doubt the feeling was dulled for dear old Ianto Johnson, the man who did this sort of thing every other day. I’d been sat drinking tea and complaining about curtains for six months too many.

The door was padlocked tightly shut, but the back door was old and the wood was rotten where it had been recently kicked in.

As my torchlight descended over the interior the chaos was revealed and our previous excitement felt a little more than callous. Well, it did to me, Ianto was hardly the world’s most sensitive soul.

The body of Mary Yonge was in the centre of the room surrounded by indescribable and unspeakable horrors, such is the way with thallium. I tried my best to dispel the possibility of a faulty gas mask as I inspected the small beaker on the table, sure enough white crystals of thallium sulphate sat within and a second beaker, lying on its side, had a trail of colourless liquid spilling from it, perhaps knocked by a clumsy hand or a falling body. The bloodied corner of the table and jam-like smear on the dusty wooden floor told the tale of Lilly Owen’s unfortunate discovery of the only _intended_ victim.

Ianto made some calls and I tried not to look until he drove me home.


	4. Chapter 4

My next morning began much the same as the last, a pounding at my door followed by a sombre Ianto. This time I sat in the lab without a literal corpse facing me, but more of a figurative one.

“Long time, no see Boss.” I said with much more bravado that I felt.

“I want to see you even less than you want to see me, so let’s get this over with.” He hadn’t changed much, his voice still made me quake in my boots and have me an unreasonable urge to put on a suit, get a haircut and use contact lenses. Precisely the reason that I wore oversized jumpers, hadn’t had a haircut in years and constantly lost my glasses.

“What do you want to know?” I slumped into my old chair.

“Tell me what happened, start to finish and none of your cryptic nonsense.” Fair enough.

“Lilly Owen left her fiancé and became friendly with his sister, Mary Yonge. When Graeme found this out he was furious, he felt heart broken, betrayed, as though his world had caved in, but most of all, he felt angry. He wanted her back, so he gave in to the darkness and planned his way back to her heart. Lilly had turned to Mary out of shared pain, which is exactly how he hoped she’d turn back to him. He wanted her to disappear. Where better than the secluded family cabin in the middle of the woods.

“When she invited him to meet with her, to tell him about her relationship with Lilly, he probably offered to make the drinks, slipped a lethal dose of thallium sulphate into her tea, knocked her out and drove her to the cabin. I think it was then that he showed symptoms.”

“Some of the fluids at the scene were his.” Ianto confirmed. I thanked him silently.

“When he locked her up and left he was weaker than usual, and walking back to his car he passed the lair of our friendly neighbourhood mugger, who probably couldn’t believe his luck. Finding an ill, unarmed, rich guy who’d tell him his pin number for no more than a punch right outside his door.”

“The mugger did admit to attacking Mr Yonge when we showed him a picture.” Ianto added. The Bosses glance flitted between us and he rolled his eyes.

“Graeme goes home, tries to carry out his plan of getting back his girl but instead his symptoms get worse. He knows what’s happening, but what can he do? Go to hospital and tell them that he didn’t wear gloves when he killed his sister? No, so he just stays at home, probably questions and regrets a few of his life choices, goes into cardiac arrest and dies.” I concluded, shrugging as benignly as I could at the frowning man before me.

“What about the girl?” He demanded. I let out a deep sigh.

“Lilly Owen was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She hadn’t heard from Mary in a while, she was worried, she went to the cabin and found the body of the woman she had grown to love. She passed out, hit her head, stayed there a little too long. When she awoke and returned home the symptoms were showing, she probably just assumed they were shock, or maybe she did realise that something was wrong. Either way, she couldn’t live with the grief or the guilt.”

“The guilt?” Even Ianto looked at me curiously. I grimaced.

“However indirectly or twisted, when the fault seems to lie on you, even just a little, if someone you love is hurt, or killed, it can be unbearable. It can make you do… unrecognisable things.” I met Ianto’s eyes and he smiled softly. He was trying to be reassuring. He failed.

The Boss just nodded. “You’d know about that Wilde. So, you’re telling me that our victim is just a clumsy murderer, and the girl’s death was an accident.”

“I am.”

“Great, we don’t have to put together a court case. I’m done here, I have bigger fish to fry.” He stood to leave.

“The ripper case?” I asked, an element of hope escaped into my voice.

“You bet, it’s been six months too many, it’s time we catch him.” His icy glare landed on me once more, “Oh, and Wilde?”

“Hmm?”

“If you interfere with a case in my department ever again, and it doesn’t get solved directly because of _you_ , security won’t just stare at you, they’ll lock you up. Understand?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“I’ve already had to tell you twice.”

“You didn’t _have to_ , believe me, I remembered it well enough from last time.” Unless I was very much mistaken, he chuckled.

“Get out of my department, Gabriel.” Now that’s something he didn’t have a chance to say twice.

“Yes Boss, see you Ianto. If you need me, you know where I’ll be.”

I’ve never left a building so quickly, and as I walked home, my mind drifted back to Lilly Owen.

I closed my door behind me and wondered if her life would have been any different if she’d left the city, the country even, instead of talking to Mary. If she’s started afresh instead of seeking consolation from those who understood, _or thought they did_.

I kicked off my shoes and wondered if she’d still be alive if Graeme hadn’t found out before he was told, if the news had been broken to him drinking coffee and eating biscuits with his sister, on a good day. _Rather than in a lab, on a bad day with some mediocre tea and a murderer on the loose_.

I put the kettle on and wondered if they’d all still be breathing if Mary had asked her brother for help when the debt began to build up. _Rather than when the lies were too deep to admit too and the guilt was too looming to risk it._

I sipped my tea and wondered if my life would be different if…

Never mind.

_~ fin ~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and any comments or kudos are greatly appreciate it (like seriously they are food for my soul to get me through the day).  
> If you wanna check out my blog then please do: http://www.elizabethbyles.opinious.co.uk/  
> Thanks again y'all!


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